


While I breathe I hope

by belantana



Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-30
Updated: 2008-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-24 00:05:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belantana/pseuds/belantana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom Quinn sees a lot of ghosts.<br/>[set 7.01, no plot spoilers.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	While I breathe I hope

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [@eljay](http://belantana.livejournal.com/11255.html).

Tom Quinn sees a lot of ghosts. Proper dead ones for a start, turning up all blood and meat on the back of a smell or the bottom of a glass. A few others he isn’t supposed to know about. He fools himself these could be false intelligence, and so they appear as blurred faces in crowds, gone before he can search for damage.

He doesn’t come to London much these days. When he can’t avoid it, he makes careful note of the places to skirt around, the pubs to pass by. Even though it’s likely no one goes to the George any more. He calculates how many streets he’ll have to walk down for the chance of meeting a real ghost to jump from incredibly unlikely to extremely improbable. Makes sure to keep just on one side of that number.

All of them are real to him for that one shuddering moment of recognition. When adrenalin sears his nerves white-hot and he chokes on the need to call out, slamming up against that glass wall that always separates him. Not glass. Perspex or some bloody thing, blurry with scratches and scuff marks and scrawls so it’s like looking through the back window of a bus, warped with heat and age but not one damn sign of a crack.

He knows they’re not real, of course, the second after. Which is why this particular ghost throws him. No millisecond-long rush of agony followed by that heady feeling as the adrenalin disperses, that feeling he forgets and remembers every time. No reeling aftershock, no perspex wall. Just a flicker of recognition so deep down that he continues on a few steps before stopping and turning around.

Christmas crowds. A woman with a pram runs into his heels. He steps aside without looking and ignores the muttered curse. There. He spots the woman first – white-blond hair like a beacon. Even from behind he knows her. The way she moves with fluid strength, the way she holds her senses on alert. He knows what she is, but not who.

They’re stopped at a crossing. Only a dozen paces away. The man is just a shapeless black coat from behind and impossible to recognise. Tom sways for a moment on the balls of his feet, fighting instinct and reason.

The light flicks to green. He watches them step into the road and sees the man raise a hand to scratch the back of his head. From the clenched fist, long fingers, spreading one by one into a slow-motion fan, muscles threading at the wrist. Then the wave folds back into a fist and into the pocket of his coat and they’re gone.

Tom drops his shoulders and draws in a breath, slowly.

\- -

‘Who was that?’

Lucas clenches his jaw. If Ros saw that wave without turning her head, she can see through his composure and she can see how his hands are balled in his pockets because he doesn’t trust them not to shake. He’ll bet decent money she also knows exactly who it was.

He shifts his face into a smile, with effort, and from the corner of his eye sees her matching grimace.

‘Just a ghost.’


End file.
